What if I ripped my DVDs? (And how about a pony?)

(tags DVD region 2, DVD region 1, DVD region 3, computer, storage, hardware)

While cleaning up my totally disorganized cave, I contemplated ripping my DVDs. For my music, I don't even do FLAC just 192 Kbit CBR MP3s, so this whole excursion is out of character. But let's just calculate. I am assuming that if I rip the DVD, I can play it back on some software DVD player, with all the subtitles and niceties intact.

Let's say I had 400 of DVDs. WTF! I just realized I don't have a complete list of the DVDs I got. The CD (compact disc audio) situation is even worse. And I don't want to even think about all the game discs and other stuff I can't copy. :-(

One DVD holds at most 4.37 Gib (Gigabits SI notation). I suppose I have some dual-layer DVDs but let's skip that for now. I know I don't have more than 5 dual-sided DVDs, so I'll also skip that. So! I'm looking at 1.75 Tib of raw DVD data.

On 2007/08 I bought a 500 Gib hard drive for about 1_2800 yen. So without any redundancy it will cost me 4_5000 yen just to keep stuff I already have, but with more convenience. I assume that compression won't get me much because this is already lossy data. In terms of a 12-13 episode anime (in Japan), that's about 1.5 sets.

Would I want to RAID it? Probably, and at RAID 5. This would probably entailing buying another computer and buying cards/switch for Gigabit Ethernet, and budgeting 1_5000 yen per year for electricity. I would also wish to encrypt it. Or I was thinking of doing the single HDD swap trick with those fancy eSATA or "USB 2.0 to SATA" connections, which is risky, right?

Sounds expensive. I think I'll just let them sit in my cave right now. Or maybe I should get rid of some? :-/ I can't "beam them up" where I'm going.

Letting go

(tags travel, game, hardware, anime, DVD region 1)

I am going back to the States on a unplanned trip and the theme is "letting go".

I decided to give my sister some gaming things: a Love and Berry DS Lite. What, my Love and Berry DS Lite? No, another one that I bought from Sofmap new. I didn't post about it back then because I was embarassed. Anyway, since I know she doesn't go buying games at all, I'll give her Electroplankton and Elite Beat Agents. The truth is that I haven't played the latter games for more than 15 minutes. I hope that the quick (music) gaming will appeal to her.

Also she mentioned she wanted to get Robotech DVDs which was a bit of a shock so I'm going to give her my incomplete set (7 part set first released on 2002) which is missing the first part of the Second Generation. I think she wants it because of the "Perfect" soundtrack I "lent" her.

No big loss right?

Yeah.